Warning as rains fall again in flood-hit Bombay

Authorities warned residents to remain at home today after heavy rains began falling again across Bombay and the surrounding state, which were hammered last week by devastating floods.

Clean-up efforts and the distribution of food supplies to needy residents were badly slowed by the renewed monsoon rains, which began early this morning, and aviation officials ordered the city’s airports, the busiest in the country, closed because of poor visibility.

“No flights are landing or taking off,” said a spokesman for Air India, the country’s national carrier.

Officials, meanwhile, said the death toll from the recent rains could reach 1,000.

The recovery yesterday of more than 100 bodies pushed the official death toll to 853. Today officials said more bodies were likely to be recovered from the flood-devastated Raigad district.

“The bodies are still coming out. There will be another 100 or so,” said the state rehabilitation secretary. “The toll will definitely be around 1,000.”

With renewed rains pounding at the city, the Bombay police issued an alert cautioning people to stay home due to rising water levels.

“We’re asking people to travel only if essential,” said Bombay’s police chief.

Five days after crippling rains pounded western India – reaching a record 37ins in suburban Bombay – soldiers, civil defence teams and aid workers continued to find bodies from the state’s worst-affected districts: Raigad, Ratnagiri, Thane, Parbhani, Nanded and Kolhapur.

But incessant rainfall and mounds of debris, boulders and mud tangled into the wooden and tin remains of people’s homes was making it a challenge to pull out the remaining bodies.

Nearly 200 medical teams from Bombay have set out for more than 300 villages across the state.

Civic authorities have deployed health workers in the Bombay suburbs to distribute medicines and disinfectants to guard against the spread of waterborne diseases.

As many as 409 people were killed in Bombay – most of them drowned, buried by landslides, or electrocuted.

Government and relief officials say there is little likelihood of finding more survivors.

Today electricity was gradually restored to many northern Bombay neighbourhoods a day after angry demonstrators blocked traffic demanding restoration of clean drinking water, power and the cleanup of garbage and decomposing animal carcasses.

Residents in five Bombay neighbourhoods shouted anti-government slogans and demanded an immediate clean-up. Some shielded themselves from the rain with plastic sheets, while others simply got drenched as they demonstrated outside civic offices.

“For so many days we have been lifting the bodies of the dead and now we are clearing animals from the roads. Is this our work?” asked a furious Hafeez Irani, his face covered with a handkerchief against the stench.

“The drains are choked. We still have no electricity,” said Irani, a construction worker. “We have these handkerchiefs on all the time.”

Civic leaders pleaded for patience. They said equipment and workers needed to clear roads and drains were being called in from other areas hit by landslides.

The government issued orders to stop all construction in the city so trucks could be used to transport garbage, debris and animal carcasses, mostly of cattle that can be found wandering in most Indian cities.

Some 25,000 sheep and goats and 2,500 buffaloes drowned in Bombay, officials said.

Despite renewed warnings from authorities to evacuate, residents in shanties built into small, crumbling hills in the city’s northern neighbourhoods say they have no place to go.

“We came from the village because there is no work there. This is our home now,” said Sakina Yusuf, a housemaid with three children. “I know they say it’s unsafe … but move where?”